From Where I Sit

By Pat Spilseth, Columnist

Flash back to memories of being a ‘60s teenager swiveling on a padded vinyl stool at Setters’ Soda Fountain in Glenwood. I can’t help but grin recalling the fun adventures I had growing up in Glenwood.

In high school several of us were lucky to get jobs at the local drug stores downtown. I worked at Stradtman’s Corner Drug Store with a group of guy clowns: Julian Mortensbak, Marv Dyrstad and young pharmacist Larry Torguson. Diane Femrite, Janet Holtberg and Bonnie Faulkner worked behind the soda fountain counter at Setters’ Drug Store. After school they were busy filling friends’ orders for Cherry Cokes and lemon-limes in short glasses with sipping straws while their pals sat chatting and giggling on those revolving stools. What a crew we were back in 1962!

High school kids were lucky to get after school and weekend jobs at stores in downtown Glenwood. We had a ball working part time jobs and earning spending money. After all, what kid didn’t crave those luscious Cherry Cokes, a new outfit at Glenwear and movie tickets at the Glenwood Theatre? We needed cash when we’d meet our friends at the A&W on the hill to buy some fries and a frosted root beer or a curly top cone at the Dairy Queen.

After work on summer weekends, we girls would grab our swimsuits and head for the beach. It was always our goal to swim out to the farthest diving tower and meet on the top platform. Oh, the mystery and tantalizing draw of a dark night, a full moon and skinny dipping at the beach. Being rather modest and naive teens in those days, we were embarrassingly shy about our bodies. But the darkness helped. We’d tie our one-piece suits to the swim tower so they wouldn’t float away, rush to climb the cold metal stairs and emerge in all our glory by the light of the full moon. As quickly as possible, we’d dive in the water, only to repeat the same procedure again and again. What a thrill! Remember, this was 1962. Our thrills were rather simple back in those days.

Other balmy evenings we’d take Dad’s car out to Halvorson’s Point and have a bonfire on the beach. A few kids drove their speedboats to the party; others borrowed Dad’s car, promising to be home at a decent hour from their “friend’s house.” Someone might have a guitar, a few guys might bring a keg of beer to share, and we’d sing and talk into the wee hours. Most of us had to be home by midnight, even earlier. In those days we had curfews imposed by our parents.

Most of us obeyed the rules. If we didn’t, we paid in one way or another. I’d get the cold shoulder treatment, get sent to my room to “think” about my indiscretion and ruminate until I’d end up feeling terrible. Then Dad would knock on my door, come in and proceed to lament about how bad he felt that I wasn’t respecting his and Mom’s rules. After all, the rules were for my betterment. Of course, I bought the story and vowed never to disobey again. That lasted at least a week until one of my buddies would lure me to another adventure.

We all wore thick, white bobby socks almost reaching our knees in those days. Rarely did we cuff them; wearing them rolled up all the way was an “in” factor. Some kids wore black and white saddle shoes. Why were they called saddle shoes? They looked nothing like a horse’s saddle. Many wore white tennis shoes; the “in” crowd wore penny loafers. We bought “dickies” to go around our neck and fastened the collar with a little metal hook & eye or a snap. Usually the dickie was a white fabric resembling the popular Peter Pan collars of a blouse. It went with our short sleeved wool sweaters and wool pleated Pendleton skirts or circle skirts with yards and yards of stiff crinolines underneath to make the skirt stick out fully.

Girls had to enroll in home economics classes where Mrs. Le Masters taught us how to cook, sew and walk with good posture. We copied recipes on file cards and filed them alphabetically in little metal recipe boxes with flip top lids. The boys had shop classes where they learned how to change oil in cars, made book cases, magazine racks and metal shop where they made oil cans.   

At the Stillwater Penitentiary, a metal shop was popular with our friend Elmer, the prisoner paroled to Dad. He arrived at our house with gifts of a family picnic table he’d made in prison out of yellow and red painted metal, plus the same little table for my sister Barbie and me. He also had a leather tooling class in the Pen where he made a belt for Dad and a tooled purse for Mom. Elmer took me to the movie shows when I was a little girl, but later, when he returned to his home and old friends in Nebraska, he got back into trouble. He died in a high speed chase after a robbery. Those incidents led Mom to teach Barbie and me the lesson that “you’re known by the company you keep.” Dad and Mom believed the guys in jail weren’t bad men; they just made some bad choices. The jail offered so many lessons for Barbie and me. A favorite was to not waste your education. Our jail friend Blackie had a university degree, but liquor became his choice in life. Another bad decision, which Mom warned her girls about rather often.

Isn’t it interesting what memories are triggered by a phone call or email from a long-lost friend? It’s great to reminisce about classmates, making pizza in the jail kitchen with frozen hamburger and Chef Boyardee pizza mix. I want to hear about the Bum’s Hideout in the woods above Diane’s family home near the railroad tracks. We found some burnt out cans of beans in a campfire one day when we dared to venture into those woods. That reminds me of the abandoned rail cars up on the hill where Punky used to race through in his dad’s collector car, a Model A or Model T. With a car full of girls, Punky would step on the gas and yell, “OK, you bums, rush us!”

It was great to be a teenager in the ‘60s in Glenwood.

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To contact Pat, email: pat.spilseth@gmail.com.